Are your competitors benefiting from YOUR advertising?

Two times in as many months my competitors have profited from my advertising and I'm getting miffed. What happened was I advertised a listing on an Internet site and gave the name and address of the MH community and the people drove to the community to see if they liked the area and wound up meeting with the on site sales team and bought homes. If I wouldn't have given out the community name and address these people wouldn't have had a clue that the community even existed. pssd; -Thomas

Ouch!

I think this is a common phenomenon. Sometimes it hurts, but other times it benefits you. -Skip Anderson

I agree, it does happen. I guess I would have to look at your advertising to see what kind of branding and logo recognition you are doing.

Do you have a catch phrase that everyone repeats when they think of your product? For example:

There was this dealership who was known for being crooks (so much that the old general manger is in jail for robbing a bank and they are out of business) - but even though everyone knew these things, they're phrase - You're in Luck, try the Duck! brought more people to their door because people repeated it over and over. With that in mind, you need to Brand your business and give your customer a tool that will prevent them from going to your competitor. -Ed Callais

No I haven't done anything special for branding and I don't have a logo. I'm just an agent trying to move a few units so I post listings when I get them to different Internet sites. -Thomas

So, do you have the option of not listing the address of your listing? -Skip Anderson

Maybe you should refocus how you want people to respond to this ad. If you left contact info, for some reason they are not responding. I agree just take off the address and just give an area location. I would then put a number on the ad that gives a phone number for more info, that records the call numbers. That way you can respond directly to them. I hope this helps -staceylee

There will always be those prospects who given the chance will drive to a listing to check it out and other listings in the area. I wouldn't disclose anything more than the name of the town or the zip code in your advertising. -Houston

I've stopped advertising the community name and address. Now people are asking for the name and address when they call. What would you say? -Thomas

Ideas:

1. Schedule an appointment to show it to them: "Oh great, thanks for your call, I can show that to you tomorrow night or Thursday night, which do you prefer?"

2. If necessary, email it to them so you have a record that you found the buyer if they buy. -Skip Anderson

Thomas:

Stay ready to go to those properties and say: I can meet you there, when are you planning to stop by. Have them commit to a date/time before handing them out the address.

Or consider if you have a few listings in that area, meet them just outside the address, and then take them buy a few.

Hope this helps!

Lance Best -Lance_Best

Great ideas Skip and Lance. Thank you. thmbp2; -Thomas

Do you think that you may have benefited from your competitors advertising at anytime? Maybe it will balance itself out. -MPrince